Chaim Weizmann’s Attitude towards Britain

On May 26, 1948, Chaim Weizmann, president of the new country of Israel, set sail from New York to Israel. He stopped in Paris for three weeks. Weizmann and his wife Vera refused to stop in Great Britain in protest over its refusal to recognize the State of Israel. Vera Weizmann was quoted in the New York Herald Tribune, saying:

“It is a sense of chagrin for us that the country we owe so much to and to which we have given the best we had has failed to recognize Israel. We don’t wish to come to England on sufferance.”

In contrast, her husband praised the people and government of the United States, “who have been in sympathy with our aims.”